There is a profound shift in the way people communicate in “always on” or “always connected” environments where the expectation is that emails and instant messages, as well as the traditional voice call, reach the recipient virtually instantly and are perhaps responded to instantly. Additionally, with the strong market penetration of social networking applications, the sense and expectation that others are visible and accessible at all times becomes pervasive. In such environments, the need arises for an increased level of transparency in communication when appropriate. Given this expectation, the need arises for users to have the flexibility to dynamically tailor the automatic response that their communication devices provide to the context that they are in and to the level of privacy they want to protect.
Today technologies such answering machines and automatic email responses give a caller or email sender some general sense of the whereabouts of the machine's user. In the case of an unanswered phone call, an answering machine can let the caller know that the user is away from the phone or on another call. In addition, the machine can, if the user is away for a prolonged period of time, let the caller know when to expect the user back, and, if desired, an alternative means of reaching him, such as a cell phone number. The answering machine provides a way to store a short message containing any information provided by the user and this information will reach anyone that calls, indiscriminately. In the case of an automatic email response, the situation is similar.